Abnormal Security hires ex-ServiceNow exec as CFO as company starts prepping for IPO
Lisa Banks, Abnormal Security’s new chief financial officer.
Abnormal Security
Abnormal Security, a startup selling email security software to companies, said on Wednesday that it’s hired former ServiceNow finance executive Lisa Banks as chief financial officer as the company gears up to prepare for an IPO.
Abnormal is going after a longstanding market, which includes incumbents Mimecast and Proofpoint, adding a layer of artificial intelligence that spots attacks in email messages. Other startups such as Material Security and Sublime Security offer competing email tools.
“We’re disrupting the legacy market, and the approach around AI and human behavior is very unique,” Banks said in an interview.
With Donald Trump returning to the White House this week, investors are bullish that they’ll see a strengthening initial public offering market, particularly for technology, after a three-year dry spell. Among the few tech IPOs last year were Reddit, Rubrik and ServiceTitan. AI chipmaker Cerebras filed IPO paperwork but has yet to float shares on the Nasdaq as planned.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, whose Wall Street firm tends to compete with Morgan Stanley when it comes to leading high-profile offerings, said last week that IPOs are “going to pick up.” At an event hosted by Cisco, Solomon said that the mood is changing and that there’s a “more constructive kind of optimism” when it comes to the overall market.
Banks said Abnormal doesn’t have a specific timeline for its IPO, but she said a year and a half should be enough time to prepare. Revenue is already predictable, thanks to the company’s multiyear deals and healthy renewal rates, she said.
“We will be profitable in the future,” Banks said.
Abnormal said in August that it had achieved more than $200 million in annualized revenue, with year-over-year growth above 100%. At that time, Abnormal said the company was valued at $5.1 billion. Investors include CrowdStrike, Greylock Partners, Insight Partners, Menlo Ventures and Wellington Management.
After seven years at ServiceNow, where she eventually became senior vice president of finance, Banks spent almost three years at restaurant payments startup SpotOn. Banks said she was eager to get back into enterprise software.
Abnormal is led by Evan Reiser, who co-founded the company in 2018 after almost three years in product management at Twitter. Banks said that Reiser is obsessed with customers and that he spends loads of time with chief information officers and security heads. She said that over time Abnormal expects to expand beyond email security.
In her role, Banks intends to work with bankers and learn from CFOs who have taken companies public. She said her finance group is busy implementing a forecasting tool, which is likely to be critical once the company is public and in the habit of providing guidance to investors.
Abnormal operates remotely, with offices in San Francisco and Las Vegas and in a WeWork space in San Jose, California, Banks said. The company reached 1,000 employees earlier this month, a spokesperson said.
Banks’s predecessor was Smita Sanadhya, who joined Abnormal from Okta in February 2024, and left the role after seven months. Sanadhya is now an advisor.
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An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation flies near the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.
Roselle Chen | Reuters
Air taxi maker Joby Aviation in a new lawsuit accused competitor Archer Aviation of using stolen information by a former employee to “one-up” a partnership deal with a real estate developer.
“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” Joby said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California Superior Court in Santa Cruz, where the company is based.
Archer and Joby did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that former U.S. state and local policy lead, George Kivork, downloaded dozens of files and sent some content to his personal email two days before he resigned in July to take a job at Archer, which had recruited him.
By August, Joby said a partner that worked with Kivork said it had been approached by Archer with a “more lucrative deal.” Joby alleges that the eVTOL rival’s understanding of “highly confidential” details helped it leverage negotiations.
Joby also said the developer attempted to terminate the agreement, citing a breach of confidentiality.
Kivork refused to return the files when Joby approached him after conducting an investigation, according to the suit. The company also said Archer denied wrongdoing, and would not disclose how it learned about the terms of the agreement or provide results from an internal investigation it allegedly undertook.
The lawsuit comes during a busy period for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology as companies race to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification to start flying commercially. ‘
The sector has also benefitted from President Donald Trump‘s newly minted eVTOL pilot program.
Joby argued in the complaint that it’s “imperative” to protect Joby’s work “from this type of espionage” to promote the sector’s success and ensure fair competition.
Last week, Joby said it completed its first test flight for a hybrid aircraft it’s working on with defense contractor L3Harris. This month, Amazon-backed Beta Technologies, another electric flight company, also went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Joby shares have more than doubled over the last year, while Archer is up about 68%.
In August 2023, Archer settled a previous legal dispute with Boeing-owned Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Archer agreed to use Wisk as its autonomous tech partner.
A hearing is scheduled for March 20, 2026.
Joby and Archer year-to-date stock chart.
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